I watched her as she bent gracefully to pick up the items scattered across the floor. She slipped her bra on, fumbled with the clasp for a moment, and then stooped for her panties. She slipped them on and stood, glorious and beautiful. Her curls were disheveled, but gorgeously framing her face still. She looked back at me for a moment as I lay on the bed, partially covered with my thick, down comforter. She gave a radiant smile and walked over to grab her skirt from the doorway. I loved that doorway. I sat up and pulled on a pair of boxers. She zipped up her skirt and walked over to me, giving a soft laugh and reaching up to run her fingers through my hair in an attempt to straighten it. Her fingers slid down to the nape of my neck, driving little shivers down my spine, and she carelessly played with a lock of hair there. She leaned up and kissed me softly.

"Don't look so sad Quatre," Cathy told me with a small smile. "I wasn't that bad, was I?"

I shook my head emphatically. "You know that's not it. I just…"

"Please," she murmured, trying to stop me.

I sighed and gave into her beseeching tone. "What about Trowa?"

"Trowa," she repeated. "Trowa loves both of us very much. You're as much a sibling to him as I am. To tell the truth, I think he'd be… happy. But, as things are now, I think this should be between you and me. I mean, you're this rich, gorgeous, famous guy and I'm… a knife thrower at a traveling circus. The press would be all over this and that's not good for either of us."

I thought about what she was saying. "Yeah. Publicity doesn't exactly make for the best relationship."

"So, this isn't over?" she asked, looking up at me.

I brought my mouth fiercely to hers and kissed her deeply. She sighed when we broke apart. "What do you think?"

"I think I don't quite believe you yet," she said against my lips.

I grinned and twisted her around so that she landed softly on the bed. She laughed, accepted my kiss, and lifted her hips as I pulled her skirt off again.

"You look absurdly happy."

I turned to the sound of the voice, tearing my gaze away from Cathy, Hilde, and Sally, talking and laughing on the couch. Duo sunk into a chair and stared at Wufei who turned a black stare on him. He shrugged.

"Okay, maybe absurdly isn't the right word, but different. More relaxed. Like if all the tension was sucked out of your body. All the… sexual tension."

We all turned to look at Wufei, wondering if he would answer the unasked question. He stared at Duo some more.

"What are you asking, Maxwell?" Wufei inquired smoothly.

"You know what I'm asking," Duo responded with a telltale lift of a brow.

Trowa glanced at me quickly. I gave a minute shrug. Would this turn into a scuffle or a session of question and answer? Wufei rolled a shoulder and tore his gaze away.

"Ask her," he responded flippantly.

"Hey Sally," Duo called out. Sally turned on the couch to look back at him.

"Yep," she asked, resting her beer on the back of the sofa.

"You and Wufei have sex yet?"

"Yep. All night long."

I raised an eyebrow. Sometime it was hard to tell if Sally was joking or not. If she wasn't though…

"Are you… serious?" I asked hesitantly.

"Yeah, are you?" Hilde repeated, leaning over to her friend.

"I don't know. How can we find out?" Sally asked with a devious smile. She tapped the rim of her beer bottle to her lips as if thinking hard about something. "How about you ask me some questions I would know only if I did."

We all sat back. This was dangerous territory. Wufei annoyed was one thing. Wufei embarrassed and angry was a completely different thing. Sally shot him a teasing glance from the corner of her eye before letting her gaze rest on the rest of us. She nodded at Heero.

"Go ahead, Heero," she practically purred. "You can have first crack."

Heero accepted the challenge, leaning forward in his chair and looking at Wufei, his hands cupped over his mouth and nose. Wufei met his gaze, waiting. Sally stood from her spot on the couch and stood next to her partner.

"There is a scar…" Heero started.

I knew the one. I'd never seen it, but I knew of its existence. Wufei never exposed the scar to anyone, partly because it was partly impossible unless he stripped down, and partly because the scar held a special significance he didn't like to talk about.

Sally smirked. "You mean this one?" She ran a hand tauntingly up Wufei's leg to his inner thigh, just short of groping and ran a finger along where the scar would have sat. More amazing was the fact that he let her.

"You had sex!" Duo cried.

"All night long," Sally repeated.

"You had sex?" Hilde exclaimed stomping over to stare at Sally. "When? How? And most importantly, how was it?"

"Hot damn," Wufei said unexpectedly, getting up and heading to the kitchen for another beer.

"Not fair. I want sex," Hilde pouted.

"Drop your pants," Duo said and the rest of us laughed.

"No seriously. Everyone around me is having sex. I want sex."

"No seriously. Drop your pants." When Hilde gave him a look Duo shrugged and rolled his eyes. "Look, I'm not having sex, Heero's not having sex, Trowa… I don't think Trowa's having sex." To this Trowa just lifted a brow. "Quatre… if blond, beautiful, billionaire Quatre isn't having sex, you think we have a chance at getting laid? You're not having sex, right Quatre?"

I resisted the urge to look at Cathy, but I could feel her staring at me and I knew she had on a vicious smirk.

"Not at the moment."

"See. Why not, by the way?" Duo inquired and all eyes turned to me. "I mean, aren't girls like flinging themselves at you?"

"Yeah Quatre? Why not?" Cathy spoke up, gliding over to stand beside my chair with cat-like elegance.

I met her gaze. "Maybe I haven't found anyone worth while."

"Oh please. Have you seen that chick in your accounting department?" Hilde remarked. "She's always all over you and damn she's hot. And really jealous. She made some snide comment the other day when I came in. She afraid we're knocking boots?"

Cathy tilted her head. "Sounds willing enough."

"What's wrong Cathy?" I retorted. "Is this just a long way around of telling me that you want to get into my pants? Are you suffering from a lack of sex?"

Trowa shifted in his chair, but he wasn't angry. He was more interested in the verbal sparring than anything else. Duo was grinning and egging me on silently with looks from across the table. Heero sat back with his hands crossed over his chest, a small smile playing on his lips. Hilde was grinning widely. She'd told me once that she thought I'd be to bashful to talk about sex. She told me this after a long discussion we'd been having about the importance of foreplay. Sally was sitting in Wufei's now unoccupied seat. Wufei himself was behind her, now that the secret was out, he was carelessly twirling a lock of her hair between his fingers, watching with veiled interest in the exchange. And Cathy was still teasing me with her eyes. She shifted her weight, her hips sliding gently. I matched her look, waiting for her answer.

"Maybe. Maybe not. As for the getting into your pants, I wouldn't mind it."

I stood then, grabbed her hand and pulled her after me towards the front door as the others broke out into a series of giggles and dismissed the scene, turning back to other topics of conversation. I pulled the door open, pushed her out and followed. I waited a moment before poking my head back in and smiling.

"What do you guys want on your pizza?" I asked.

"Everything," Duo called back. "Except radishes."

"Do they put radishes on pizza?" Sally asked.

"They put everything on pizza. And I mean everything. One time-"

I closed the door on the conversation and turned to Cathy. I walked past her and she followed a few steps behind. We rode down the elevator in silence, not looking at one another, with a respectable distance in between. She shifted her weight again and flicked a curl out of her face. I ignored her and the heat that was working its way up my spine. I let her get out first and nodded to the when she looked back at me after having stepped outside the gate. She walked steadily in front of me. We walked about a block, down the relatively empty street towards the pizza place we always ate.

I grabbed her arm roughly and she gave a surprised yelp as I pulled her into a dark, small alley between two of the buildings. She giggled and fell against me, willingly meeting my mouth and kissing me. I smile as we broke and looked down at her in the dank gloom of the alley.

"Do you know what you cost me back there?" I asked in a husky whisper.

She grinned maliciously. "I'm willing to pay for any damage done."

"Are you?"

She nodded and took my hand in hers. She pressed it to her thigh and slid it slowly up until my fingers bent around and curved her backside. I tightened my grip and bent to take her mouth hungrily. Her fingers fumbled with the snap of my pants and I heard the faint sound of my zipper being undone. I kissed her neck, sucking lightly and she sighed contentedly, her mouth at my ear. She gave a small, shiver-inducing lick and my grip tightened. She was wearing another skirt, this one at mid-thigh, a respectable length, but tantalizing nonetheless. I found the bottom and slid my hand under it. She smiled cruelly when I discovered she was wearing only the skirt.

I flipped her around so that she was pressed up tight against the wall and took her there in the middle of the deserted, dark alley, people passing sporadically. It was a new thrill, that maybe some adventurous person would come in and see us, but they didn't. We were far back enough in the shadow to see but stay unseen by others. And the whimpers and moans she was making were low enough for only me to feed off. When she peaked, she opened her mouth, but held her cry, her nails digging into my shoulders, strangely adding to the pleasure, not taking away from it.

It wasn't until after I'd buttoned my fly and that lovely, heady air cleared from my head that a thought dawned on me. I whipped my head over to look at her. She was smoothing the wrinkles from her skirt. She tossed her hair back and met my gaze, a question in her eyes.

"Cathy we… I mean, I just realized that this whole time we've never-"

She stopped me with a smile and a quickly raised hand. "A regular period makes for better traveling."

"So you're…?"

"On the pill? Yeah," she nodded. She laughed. "Jesus, you looked so scared. Not ready to be 'Daddy' yet, huh?"

I thought about it and gave a small shrug. "I would just like to now when it would be coming."

"Hey, you won't offend me. I sure as hell am not ready to be 'Mommy' yet."

We started out of the alley in silence. I felt like a schoolboy as I shyly intertwined my fingers with hers. She looked up at me with a small, surprised smile and then leaned her head gently on my shoulder.

"Yet, huh?" I repeated. "So you have thought about it."

"Every girl thinks about it. Have you?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"And?"

"I want kids, maybe not right now, but sometime in the future. I really just want a family, the whole deal you know, wife, kids, dogs, cat, whatever. Again, not right this second, but I do."

Cathy smiled against my shoulder. "Me too."

I met Trowa for lunch the next day. We sat down in that comfortable silence we always shared and ordered. Trowa stared at me while the waiter set off to get the order in.

"You fixed it," he said, taking a sip of his water.

I finished swallowing and put my own glass down. "What?"

"Whatever the problem was between you and Cathy. You called her Cathy, not Catherine. She looked happy around you, easy. You did too."

I smiled at my friend. "The other day, when I went with her to the lake."

He nodded and there was once again the comfortable silence. After a long while he spoke again.

"Thank you."

I looked up at him. He had on a small, meaningful smile. I nodded. Then my brow creased and I leaned forward. "Can I ask a question?"

He gave a quick nod.

"Are you having sex?"

Trowa gave a laugh then and shook his head. "No."

"Have you had sex, though? I mean, before?"

He sobered. "Yes." He gave a shrug. "It relieves tension."

"I know." Several images passed through my mind. "It does. But I didn't really… I mean, it wasn't what it was supposed to be back then. It was a means to an end for a fifteen, sixteen-year-old boy."

"No. It wasn't what it should have been. I could have sex."

"Patricia?" Patricia was a regular client of the scrap yard. She obviously was interested in Trowa, but Patricia was a decent girl. She didn't hide like a little kid, all bashful and silly, but she wasn't overbearing and needy. She had asked him once if he was interested, he'd told her he wasn't politely. She smiled, asked if they could still be friends, that their yard was too good to get into problems with, and had maintained a good customer, leaning towards friendship, relationship with him.

He gave a nod. "It has to be different Quatre. It can't be a means to an end. 'Means to an end' is a soldier's priority. It should be something normal, something you want, something that means… something."

I smiled at my introverted friend. "You've changed Trowa."

He reciprocated my smile, leaning back to allow the waiter to set his food down before him. "Thank you Quatre."